New LED lights in Sydney

[JoeBlow]

This is for any of the guys from Western Sydney.

Over the past year there's been a project to replace 10% of the suburban street lights to LED in 100 Western Sydney suburbs. The project is now close to complete. I was wondering if anyone that happens to live in one those suburbs can give their opinion on these lights. Are they full cut off flate lenses? Are they brighter than the lamps they replaced? Do they reduce less light trespass? Do you think they are overall better or worse for astronomy?

It's important to know as more locations accross NSW are expected to convert to LEDs over the coming years.

Thanks,

Joe

[jenchris]

The ones I've seen in the UK were very good.
Colour was slightly blue.
Cut off was precise, posts were quite short .
Reflection was quite low except on wet pavement.
I didn't notice much halo above the lights. Though I expect it would be pronounced in wet weather. But that is not a worry as we seldom observe in wet weather

[chappo001]

The LED luminaires going in around Sydney at the moment are trials. In my local area (Manly, so it's not just the Western Suburbs) two streets were converted a couple of years ago. In other parts of Sydney it's an on going process, eventually all (100%) Sydney street lights will be LED. In the USA, UK and Europe there process is much more advanced and in some cases, such as Davis, California, the local community forced the retrofit from high CCT to a much lower CCT at 1800K, these lights are an amber colour.

The LED street lights going in around Sydney have a much higher efficacy than the lights they replace, they produce many more photons at a higher energy than the existing lights, so they have a lower wattage but the light is brighter. The design of the luminaire also impacts what's happening, with LED street lights the LED itself will have a lens and is primarily responsible for the distribution of light, so that means the light can be controlled and brought to a sharp focus and a sharp cut-off.

I and a colleague from Sydney Outdoor Lighting Improvement Society (http://www.solis.asn.au) recently surveyed some LED lights at Kellyville. These lights used a drop lens on the luminaire, much like the existing street lights, and not a full cut off fixture, one of these lights wasn't mounted parallel to the road surface and was tilted up effectively pointed at the house across the road. The amount of light would be well over the Australian Standard (AS2482) of 1 vertical lux. The luminaires have been designed to limit the rearward throw so the illuminance value behind the light was much lower than would be expected. So light trespass depends on how well the light has been installed.

I attended a lighting conference in Melbourne last year where many of the regional councils gave presentations on converting to LED, I believe 90% of Victorian regional areas have converted to LED, parts of Tasmania and Queensland have also converted, as the crews and skills were available. One council showed a before and after of the light dome. The before image showed a large orange glow the after showed the orange dome gone, in fact what has happened is the blue light from the LEDs has scattered out much sooner than the longer wavelength of the high pressure sodium. The blue scatter probably just wasn't picked up by the camera, the exposure wasn't long enough.

The photos of cities from the ISS show starkly where LED lighting has replaced older forms of street lights, LED street lights are putting more light into the atmosphere, of course if you can see that light at the ISS then the rest of it may be on it's way to alpha Centauri.

Wandering around the suburban streets of Kellyville we spoke to a local, he said that he hadn't noticed the lights had been changed - people don't go outside at night - they don't care.

If you see these LED street lights appearing in your local streets, then I'm keen to know about them, you need to ask council if they know what's happening because the chances are it's the electricity distributor doing whatever they want. The town of Davis in California managed to get a retrofit it should be possible here, there is plenty of supporting documentation to go after Council.

[JoeBlow]

Thanks for the information Chappo.

I'm also interested in monitoring developments on street lightening. Street lamps are the biggest contributor to Skyglow, so any changes to them will also affect the skyglow for better or worse. I'm always on the look out for changes to street lamps in my area, so Ill post here once they convert to LED in my suburb.

Like you mentioned the type of LED lamp used makes a difference. I hope at the very least they will direct most of them only towards the ground with full cut off fixtures.

[chappo001]

The issue of full cut-off fixtures is basically over, although the lights at Kellyville are the first I've seen recently using drop lenses. The real issue is spectrum, for both the purposes of astronomy and health the evidence against blue light at night is mounting strongly.

The amount of light from a luminaire that enters the sky has been pegged at 3% for a long time, and full cut-off fixture put that to zero. The issue is that 30% of the light from the luminaire will be reflected back up into the sky, and then a certain percentage of that comes back down to be collect by your eyes or the telescope.

As the population of urban areas increases and urban areas expand it is imminent that the amount of lighting will also increase and that light pollution increases. The situation can only be dealt with by lighting only where necessary and with the appropriate amount of light for the purpose.

[Wavytone]

Interesting - its not always the councils fault. Ausgrid/Endeavour may be responsible for the lighting.

[rustigsmed]

hmmm does anyone know the industrial designer for Melbourne City Council? he was conducting LED trials along Southbank a few years back but more geared to do with performance/value not spectrum (ie German vs australian vs chinese lights) for quality and cost - and he is a smart smart man, he designed street furniture / fixtures that ended up being copied in Paris/europe etc - he is also attributed to creating the laneway districts in melbourne. so pretty much what he decides upon makes a difference in terms of what happens elsewhere... could be too late i know he was there 3 years ago but would definitely listen... i'll look into it.

[chappo001]

I know who the lighting designers are for Melbourne City Council. Whilst street furniture in general wouldn't be a problem for astronomy and the catenary lighting in the alleys of Chinatown are examples of good lighting, maybe you don't want a lot of this in residential suburbs. There's a large intersection in Melbourne lit by blue light from a catenary, this might be decorative but not astronomy friendly.

To demonstrate that not all street lights are created equal, there is tria/testing area outside of the Eureka Skytower, it is easy to pick out because the lights under test are so different from each other, it's worth a look.

Obviously Melbourne City Council get a huge say in how the lighting is done and it's mostly appropriate for a city, this isn't the case in the suburbs.

[JoeBlow]

That's interesting... Conventional thinking in the amateur astronomy community had been that light pollution is primarily caused by unshielded lights. If what you say is correct its frightening since LED lights are usually a lot brighter.




Unfortunately with LED lights being far cheaper to run I imagine people will be become even more liberal in their use of outdoor lighting especially once production costs of LED lights go down.

[rustigsmed]

yep thats the area i'm talking about, he was in charge of that as far as i was aware.

[multiweb]

LED lights are super bright. Even brighter than some of the older halogen type. They also last a lot longer and are cooler so in the long run I can see the councils saving money in maintenance. That means they will be cheaper to run and there will be a lot more LED lighting in the future than we have standard lighting now. In all the light pollution problem will be magnified.

[billdan]

There is another issue with LED lighting and that is RF interference, my father had his house recently converted to LED lighting and the RFI swamped his TV signal in a fringe area. Channel 7 and 10 just did not work anymore.
He was also told by an electrician if it interferes with his neighbors TV he could be sued.

So he went back to fluro's in the lounge room so he can watch TV.

Regards
Bill

[sharptrack2]

It's too bad that Australia doesn't have tighter control on these devices. Anything that has a switch mode power supply should conform to RF emissions standards.

The good intentions of the manufacturer, saving power by using PWM, or the simple act of down converting 240 VAC to DC, is negated by poor design.

[N1]

LEDs are due to be rolled out in Dunedin as well, but I'm glad to see some extra thought going into it. (http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/whats-on/energy-plan/action-2-night-sky-city)

[solissydney]

Mike, I informed our last SOLIS meeting that the LED street lights we inspected in Kellyville are in fact the start of the permanent installation, 'it was well advertised in the local media' as I informed our meeting at the time. It was also confirmed by Endeavour Energy installers I spoke to prior to our last SOLIS meeting.
The installers told me the 1700 odd 22 W LED's in Baulkham Hills Shire will be replaced only as the older 80 W back-street lights wear out, either singly or sometimes, like the 30 odd ones, in Kellyville.
Two of the images I took show the Sylvania fixture. The tilt of the fixture caused by the arm of the light post. A common problem.
Having recently visited Copenhagen the attached image might look very dark to some. But because most light fixtures, of all kinds, are shielded, (no bright glare spots) even lighting is archived. Compare that with the massive over-lighting we here in Australia demands.
There are plans in Copenhagen to replace the HPS lights with LED's.
Clear skies
Ken
Founder, President
Sydney Outdoor Lighting Improvement Society Inc.

[JoeBlow]

The LED lights that are being rolled out across Western Sydney also have drop lenses.

See the pictures in the below links:

http://lightyearsahead.com.au

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wsroc/albums

[JoeBlow]

Two days ago I noticed the first LED light installed in my suburb (a suburb of Campbelltown). It appears exactly like the one in the photos posted by solissydney (Ken) in the post above.

It's a bit of a let down that they are not full cut off, but they do appear better shielded than the old ones. They are a lot brighter however...